Sandals Barbados

I was really looking forward to my birthday trip to sandals in Barbados. I had already attended about six different sandals so I thought I would be treated great. I was promised A Room With a View but got a room with no view with a tree in front of the balcony. Could not change or update because of the hurricane in Jamaica (which I understood) the quest from Jamaica filled up the rooms. The outside workers were friendly and greeted you it was the staff and the staff in the restaurants that acted like they didn't want to be there. I had heard from different guests that I met there that the attitudes of some of the waitresses and service staff was somewhat rude or they all had attitudes. I personally experienced this in the Portofino Italian Restaurant I think the girl's name was Charmaine (not sure) she was very rude and didn't care if we knew she was being rude. There was a couple of exceptions to the staff in the piano bar I think his name was Ahmed he was great and so was Kimberly! I would not visit this sandals again.

Sandals Barbados, I'm writing to express my extreme disappointment and frustration with our recent stay at your resort, which was supposed to be a celebration of our anniversary. Despite booking the butler service, we were left to fend for ourselves from the moment we arrived. No one showed up to escort us to our room, and we had to call the front desk for assistance with our bags. Throughout our stay, we weren't given a proper tour of the resort, and it wasn't until 45 minutes after arrival that our room was finally attended to. The next day, which was our anniversary, our butler arrived an hour late for our dinner reservations, resulting in us losing our table and missing the evening's show. The poor service continued during our stay. At the restaurant, I had a quesadilla with blue mold, which I reported to the staff. Instead of receiving proper care and attention, I was sent to the nurse's office, where I was only given a blood pressure check and told to return every three hours. When I brought my complaints to the management's attention, I was offered 12,000 points, which was a fraction of what I paid for our stay. I declined the offer and spoke to three different managers, who promised to follow up with me. However, no one followed through on their promises. After returning home, I received an email offering two days of a regular stay, which was an insult considering the subpar experience we had. I've emailed them multiple times since, but I've received no response. As a result, I've lost trust in Sandals Royal Barbados, and I'm canceling my membership. You lost my business due to the poor service and lack of accountability. I expect better from a luxury resort.

★★☆☆☆ Not Worth the Hype Sandals Barbados is a beautiful resort, but honestly, it’s not worth the hype. The place itself is nice, but management really needs to have a serious talk with some of the staff. While many employees are friendly and kind, there are quite a few who carry a big attitude — the kind that makes you feel like you’re bothering them just by asking for something. It’s a shame, because the ones who are good are really good, but the bad attitude from others completely ruins the experience. Back home, that kind of behavior would get people fired. The grounds are okay, but the beach definitely needs more attention. There’s way too much seaweed, and it’s left sitting around most of the day. On top of that, the “concierge elite” guests leave their stuff everywhere, and the clean-up doesn’t happen until around 4 p.m., so the beach looks messy for most of the day. For the price you pay, there are far better all-inclusive options out there. Sandals Barbados just doesn’t live up to the reputation or the cost. Save yourself the disappointment — unless you’re into being served with side-eye and attitude.

This resort is not the place to go for a good time. No kind of shows or entertainment planned for people to have a good time besides singing by the piano. The workers did not show good hospitality. Every request was met with a rebuttal. Very unprofessional. They told us several times they didn’t have anymore of s couple of different things like jerk chicken or Armaretta to make an Armaretta Sour drink. It was crazy. My whole faucet came off the wall in the tub. Restaurants closed at certain times to prepare for dinner. If you didn’t have a reservation for the good restaurants you most likely will be at the Pub. We literally had to make our own fun and entertainment. If you are looking for a fun and exciting good time Sandals Barbados is not it. We thought that we would receive an experience of a lifetime at a Sandals resort and this was not what all the hype was about. Let me say that Jack the host in the Pub, bar restaurant was the absolute best!

Apologies in advance, this is a long one. If you aren’t a diver, please know that my rating is heavily influenced by our scuba experience. My husband and I just returned from an 8 night stay at Sandals Barbados. When we arrived, the check in process wasn’t great. We arrived around midnight, so they were on a shoestring staff (one person to check us all in, he did his best!). It took us over an hour to get to our room. We never received our welcome packet. The resort itself is beautiful. We stayed in the OBT Beachfront Club level room with balcony soaking tub. The ocean view is amazing. There were a couple nights where the room was very loud earlier in the evening due to entertainment, so if you go to bed early, pick a room near the back of the resort. Otherwise it was quiet by 10. The room itself is small compared to other club rooms we have stayed in, but it was clean and there was ample storage. We were very happy with it! The food was consistently very good. I loved the pre-made smoothies for breakfast at Spices, and Butch’s was great. David at Schooners went well out of his way to get our friend a special drink called a “Bloody Brain” (on Halloween) which we appreciated. The restaurants are on island time, you won’t get food quickly, even at the fast locations. Most restaurants and room service took about an hour to serve our entrees. The exception to that is the Paris sweet shop, they were very quick even when they had long lines. The spa was a highlight of our trip. I had a pedicure with Carla. We had great conversation and she helped recommend excursions on the island. She also went out of her way to show me the spa amenities and to see the monkeys that travel through the trees near the spa! The couples massage later in the week was amazing as well. Highly recommend a spa service if you go, the staff there is wonderful! We didn’t have butler service but our friends did. They asked me to highlight how exceptional Princess was, she went above and beyond to offer them a great vacation. Unfortunately, the diving experience, a priority for us, fell short. We are frequent Sandals travelers due to the inclusive diving; that alone is what keeps us coming back. So far we’ve been to Negril, St. Vincent, Grenada, Curaçao, and St. Lucia, most of these multiple times, and have had all good experiences. We also have paid Sandals quite a lot for the certifications and registration fees required for their Elite diver program, which at its baseline guarantees a spot on the dive boat. Anyone who frequently dives at Sandals knows that in the morning there are usually two tank dives, and a single tank dive in the afternoon that is usually shallow and used for training. For a typical week at Sandals, we usually dive about 12 tanks, but with the issues we experienced, we only had 5 total dives this trip. On our very first dive, several guests noticed that our air was contaminated (it tasted like exhaust). The team appropriately called off the second dive in order to clear and clean the tanks. That by itself was handled correctly, and they initially were able to clean enough tanks for a single tank dive each morning, but by the end of our week stay, they still hadn’t cleaned enough tanks to support a two tank morning dive. A few days delay might be understandable… a full week is long. Several of our friends arrived later in the week, all of whom also had also paid for the elite diver program. Despite the guarantee for a spot on the boat, they were told that there was “no way” they could get on the boat despite providing a couple of days notice. They were advised to call the water sports manager to try to work something out. At other resorts, when the boat is full, they either take a second boat or they work out another option to honor their commitment. Nobody tried to find a creative solution or set up another boat. Additionally, the onus to solve the problem was placed on us - we had to call the manager ourselves and had to jump through hoops to even get face time with him. At one point, we were advised to have our friend’s butler call their butler manager, to call the water sports manager to set up time to meet. What would they do for non-butler guests? It very much felt like they wanted us to just give up so they didn’t have to deal with us. In the end, our friends were only offered a morning waitlist spot and a spot on the shallow afternoon dive. The water sports manager tried to sell the afternoon training dive with the snorkelers as a reasonable solution (it’s not). Definitely not what we paid for with the Elite program. We travel a lot and have had minor issues come up at other Sandals resorts. We get that things happen, but the way this was handled in Barbados versus other Sandals locations is a night and day difference. At other places, the staff would be empowered to work with management behind the scenes to find a solution. Additionally, water sports managers at other Sandals are very visible to guests; they make appearances at the dive shop and interact with the divers to see how their week is going. That’s not the case here, we never saw him outside of the meeting we requested with him. To cite the positives, the few reef dives we had were very nice. The dive instructors were all amazing and they did what they could within their power to make our experience great. The vibe on the boat is positive. We primarily dove with Ryan, but also had great experiences with Robert and Seth. Ryan took great care of us, we can tell he is passionate about diving. We were able to store some of our gear in the shop, it was rinsed for us, and the crew had boat spots designated and set up for us each day, which was great! Unfortunately, we suspect that the dive instructors are more limited in their ability to be flexible with dive sites to accommodate their divers abilities and preferences than we’ve experienced at other locations (they seem to go to Carlisle Bay A LOT), but they made the best of it. Overall, there is so much potential for Sandals Barbados to be a solid dive destination, but the management of dive operations has room to improve. Diving is not prioritized to the same level as other Sandals locations, and I suspect the manager either doesn’t dive or hasn’t taken the time to understand the typical guest experience of diving at Sandals. I’d love to come back to dive in Barbados, but as it is today, we’d likely stay elsewhere and dive with a local shop, which is a shame because we really like the crew. We have had many great experiences with Sandals at other locations, but unfortunately Barbados didn’t live up to our expectations. Had this been our first Sandals trip, I’m not sure we’d be back.